Chapter 20

Dana’s car was indeed in the parking lot, along with the Bartles’ ancient van, mottled but not blue streaked. I was glad to see that Emily was also at work. It meant I could get Dana off to herself and talk to her without phone calls, drop-ins or deliveries interrupting us. And we had plenty to talk about. I put Fargo on lead in honor of possible delicate artwork lying around, and we walked toward the gallery entrance.

I really wanted this Zoe situation sorted out soon. The tension level got higher by the day. The atmosphere in the Catlett home must be palpable with antagonism on the one hand and concern for Zoe on the other. Tweedledee and Tweedledum must break a sweat anytime they heard footsteps approaching. Dana and Harry were under pressure. Zoe must be in the worst shape of all. And when people got that tight, they made mistakes. They made decisions that could haunt them for life. They took actions that could be fatal.

It was definitely time to saddle up and sound the charge.

“Good morning, ladies.” I smiled as I walked through the gallery and into the back room that served as office, storeroom and repair shop. Emily seemed to be bathing an oil painting in a mild detergent mix, rubbing it gently with a washcloth, while Dana was applying plaster to a large ornate frame using such interesting tools as a Popsicle stick and a nutpick.

“Emily, won’t that smear the paint?”

“That was my first thought, too,” she said, continuing her efforts. “But apparently, if you rub gently with a soft cloth and then rinse it lightly with clear water, you just take off the surface dirt and brighten it up. You don’t disturb the basic paint, but the colors show bright and fresh, like it was done yesterday.”

“Just make sure it wasn’t done yesterday and the paint is well, well set.” Dana laughed. “Otherwise you have Kindergarten one-oh-one and then some. The paint on that one is safely years old and hard as a rock.”

“Say, Dana,” I said casually, “could I see you for a couple of minutes?”

“Sure. Let me just smooth this out and close up the plaster and get it off my hands. Five minutes max.”

“Okay.” I nodded. “I’ll be outside.”

I went out and sat on one of the benches placed randomly in a grassy area along the side of the gallery. I didn’t have long to enjoy the scenery. Dana was true to her timetable as she sat down beside me.

“What’s up?”

“You’ve been lying start to finish on this kidnapping thing is what’s up. You can start telling me the truth right now, or I can call my brother to take you down to police headquarters so you can think about it in a nice cozy cell. What’ll it be?”

She covered her face with her hands and began to cry. “Oh, God, Alex, I’ve been so frightened. I am so frightened.”

“Tears don’t hack it, Dana, not at this point. It’s gone on too long, with everybody playing innocent, and I don’t think anybody is. First, is Zoe still alive?”

“Yes. Oh, yes, she’s all right. That’s the only thing that’s right.”

Her gaze drifted up the hill to the old barn. Bingo! Why hadn’t I thought of that eons ago?

“Start at the beginning, Dana, and one lie from that mouth and you go out of here in cuffs.”

She took a deep, shaky breath and began to speak. “It really did start as a game . . . a lark, whatever. You know that. And the two guys—Rick and Gerald—really did just volunteer to help us. Hell, they knew the gallery was closing. Their summer of painting and beaching and parties and sex was ending. They had little, if any, money to go back to New York, or maybe England, wherever. It would be a farewell. A farewell caper for them, and five thousand each would be mighty handy. It looked like a win-win for everyone.”

Dana gave a short laugh. “One of them had read an article about someone who got kidnapped and thought he now was an expert on all aspects of kidnapping. For example, they would put Zoe in a tent inside the barn so no one could accidentally see her moving around through the openings in the barn. And no one could see a dim light at night. Also, it would give her some privacy. Remember, she was not a prisoner.”

I was glad Dana said that. It was hard not to think of Zoe as a victim. However she might be feeling now, she had been the instigator.

Dana ran her hands through her hair distractedly. “I lied to you about showing a sketch of the guys around town, but you know that now. It was just to throw you off. They really didn’t want me following them out here to be with her the night she was . . . taken. They were afraid Jan or Betsy might see my car and wonder what I was doing up at the barn at night.”

I managed to get a question in. “Why did they take a chance of hurting you badly, tossing you out of the van?”

She crossed her legs, looked at her still swollen ankle and shook her head.

“They didn’t toss me out. I was never even in the van. They were just pulling away—fairly fast, yes—but I would have been okay if I hadn’t tripped over a skateboard some idiot had left on the edge of the sidewalk. I’m lucky I didn’t fall under the back wheels of the van. And they couldn’t very well back up to see what happened. They had to go on, and they knew Harry was there to help me. They got Zoe settled in the barn. The next morning Rick came out to my house and called Zoe’s home and got that crazy bitch her father married. And then it stopped being a game.”

I stretched and lit a cigarette. “In what way?”

Dana’s tears had stopped. Her face was taut with worry, lips pulled into a thin line. I wouldn’t want to cross her when she was fifty.

“Gerald told us that the kidnapping article said you needed to keep the house of the kidnapee under surveillance, so you would know who was at home and when, and if there were cops around, et cetera. That made sense to us. We certainly didn’t want to call and get the wicked witch again. But the guys were so stupid they just took the van and parked it up the block a little way where they could see the front door and the driveway. And they parked in the same place for two whole long days. How could they be so utterly dumb? I was still home nursing this ankle, or I would have warned them they were just asking to be found out.”

I grinned and shrugged. Sonny always said your average crook was not overly smart, and our Anglo-American duo was inexperienced to boot.

“Who spotted them? Marvin?”

“No. Reed. They were parked in their usual spot, one of them presumably watching the house while the other one dozed or read. All of a sudden this male voice at the driver’s window says, ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen. As you can see, I am not in the house.’ Gerald said Reed had the biggest pistol ever made pointed at his head. They were plain terrified.”

“With good reason.” I laughed. “It was once pointed at my head, too, and I thought it bore a strong resemblance to a cannon. How did the encounter end? Obviously he didn’t shoot them.”

“Reed told them to go out to Race Point or the amphitheater—I forget which—and meet him there in half an hour. He said if they weren’t there, he’d give the police the plate number and their description . . . if he didn’t decide to settle the matter himself. He smacked Gerald on the head with the gun and walked back to his house. Obviously, control of the situation had shifted. Whatever control we had had was now in Reed’s hands. He could describe Rick and Gerald. He could describe the van, and he had a plate number. I was terribly frightened for Zoe. None of the others seemed to realize how serious this was. They were still thinking only of the money.”

I was impressed with Dana’s maturity and insight, but I was also stifling a grin. I thought I knew how the trip to the amphitheater ended.

Dana continued. “They went out to the amphitheater, all right, but for some reason the place was absolutely crawling with cops. The guys tried to act nonchalant and look innocent, but they were scared and took off in a minute or so. They thought Reed had screwed them, but apparently not. Nobody followed them. Meantime, Zoe was getting itchy. I snuck up to see her a couple of times when no one was around, and got her some clean clothes of mine. After the debacle with the cops, we waited a day or so and called the house again. Reed told the boys to meet him at an outdoor greasy spoon down on Route Six.”

She gestured toward the highway and then continued. “There he gave them some one-time cell phones and the number of his own cell and told them to stop using his landline.”

He was worried the cops had it tapped. Strange that he was the one worried about that, isn’t it?

It was indeed. We had all thought the kidnappers had instigated that ploy. I was getting warm and thirsty. “Any cold drink machine around?”

“Heavens! Nothing so lowbrow as a drink machine, but there’s soda in the fridge in the office. Is Diet Coke all right or would you like ginger ale?”

“Coke is fine.”

As Dana walked away, my mind began to race. Why hadn’t Reed simply driven down to the Tellman place and rescued his daughter? He must have realized, if the guys were driving a van registered to the Tellmans, Zoe just about had to be in the barn or somewhere in that mausoleum they called a house. If he didn’t want to go it alone, their use of the van was certainly enough to get the cops a search warrant for the entire premises, even though the Tellmans were not involved. And money should no longer even be involved. It was a straight rescue operation.

I figured that while Reed hadn’t been in on the so-called game from the beginning, he was definitely in it now. He was stalling, stalling, stalling. I wanted to know why, why, why?

Dana broke into my thoughts as she handed over a wonderfully cold can of soda. “Thanks, this is great.” I took a long swallow and asked bluntly. “What is Reed’s part in this plot? He’s in it now, isn’t he?”

“To his neck.” She set her soda can on the bench between us. “He’s . . . he’s punishing her, I think.”

“How? Why?” I rubbed my cigarette out on the end of the bench, fieldstripped it and put the filter in my pocket.

“Well, some of this may sound crazy, but think about it. In front of the family, he was at least neutral, if not supportive, about her being a lesbian. That night, he came to her room and tore her a new one. He called her a pervert and an ungrateful bitch. Said she would tarnish the family name. Who does he think they are, royalty or something? I mean, her grandmother is a sweetheart, but she’s hardly a blue blood. Then he said she could hurt his business, swanning around with a bunch of rough dykes. As if you’d cancel building your house of dreams because your architect has a gay kid. It didn’t stop Dick Cheney. And Merrilou’s a lot more likely to ruin Reed socially than Zoe. He ended up slapping her and walking out.”

“So he lost it. Any idea why?” I hoped she had one. I didn’t.

“Well . . .” Dana paused. “This is where it gets murky. A few weeks ago, Zoe showed me a picture of her mother at age eighteen. Until I finally realized the hair and the clothes were wrong, I thought I was looking at a picture of Zoe. I think maybe Reed is mad at Frances for getting killed and mad at Zoe for looking like her. And who knows? Maybe wants to have her . . . you know, physically.” She looked embarrassed but determined.

“Could be. I’d have to ask a shrink.” I sipped my drink.

“As to how he’s punishing her, that’s easy. He won’t let her come home, for one thing. He told the boys he has the money, that he will give each of them fifty thousand Saturday night at the gala. But not till then. Then he—Reed—will ‘rescue’ her from the barn. Obviously, there will be no money for Zoe or Harry. He told Rick and Gerald to take all her clothes away and not let her wash, much less really bathe. He told them to give her a bucket to use for a toilet. She could dump it once a day. Bread and water should be her diet, and there should be no lights for her, much less radio or TV. Oh, and no blanket at night. Let memories of her lover keep her warm despite the chill. I could happily kill the son of a bitch.”

“I can hardly believe it. Her own father? Do you believe Gerald and Rick are telling the truth?” I lit cigarette number something, more to hide my horror than anything else.

“Yes. Alex, they aren’t really bad guys. Remember, when they got into this, it was mostly for fun. Maybe wrong, and not nearly as funny as we thought it was. But fun. And I didn’t tell you the worst suggestion he made. Reed laughed and told them if they didn’t mind a little B.O., they should feel free to have sex with her as often as they wanted. He said probably all she needed to forget all this gay shit was to get laid by a couple of healthy, raunchy young men. Can you imagine any father saying that to two men?”

“No, I can’t.” And I couldn’t. My feelings toward my own father might not be exactly warm and fuzzy, but he would have killed any man who raped me. And rape was the proper word for what Reed had invited Rick and Gerald to do. “Did they take advantage of the offer?”

“Oh, no. Rick is gay, for one thing. But they are both decent fellows. They wouldn’t do that. In fact, they haven’t done any of the awful stuff Reed suggested. They know he wouldn’t dare be seen going up to the barn to check if they did follow his instructions, so they’re safe enough. Zoe is bored, sick of McDonald’s food and getting frightened that it’s dragging out so long, but she is basically okay. She doesn’t even know what her bastard father said. We haven’t wanted to add to her stress. I’ll tell her about it afterward.”

“Maybe you’d want to make sure her grandmother is with you when you do that. Zoe’s going to be feeling pretty insecure for a while. It will be a lot for you to try to handle by yourself.”

“I know. I’ve been worried about going away to school. I would like to stay home, but I just can’t screw that up.” Dana giggled and it was good to hear the girl that still lived inside. “My father would have somebody kidnap me if I went through everything I did to get into such a good school and then just casually decided to take a semester off before I even started.”

“And so he should.” I smiled at her. “Maybe Rick and Gerald could start a kidnapping business. Although they don’t seem too adept at it. By the way, how do they plan to get away from here?”

“Reed got them two phony passports from some friend of his. I think he said down Cape someplace.” She picked up our two empty cans and winged them neatly into a trashcan. “I saw them, and they certainly looked genuine to me. Reed says a rental car will be parked by the gate over there Saturday night. They will get away from the East Coast right away, driving some inland route down to Atlanta. From Atlanta they fly to Dublin and are on their own.”

“Reed seems well versed in a life of crime,” I remarked sourly.

“I wondered about that.” She turned to me quizzically. “Do you suppose he has a secret life of some sort?”

I ignored what I assumed was a facetious question, wanting to get us back on a cop/suspect role if I could. It was hard to think of any of them as anything but naughty children, who should be spanked and then hugged and forgiven. The only villain seemed to be the highly respected father.

“Dana, as far as I can tell, you have broken about a dozens laws. What I should do is take you down to headquarters and let my brother, Lieutenant Peres, decide what to do with you. I know he will at least want to talk with you, if not arrest you. He’ll doubtless have questions I’ve missed. But I hate to see you walking into the police station, firmly escorted by a deputy police officer.”

She turned pale. “Oh, please Alex, please don’t do that. My grandmother might literally die of mortification. Is there any place else I could meet your brother? Any time, anywhere. I promise I would be there. Although I can’t think of anything we’ve missed, I’ll be glad to go over it again with him. I just have this feeling we should get Zoe out of there soon. Maybe your brother can think of something. The boys would like just to let her go now, but they really do need some money and especially the car.”

“And,” I added dryly, “there is a little matter of the various laws they have broken. Or did you think the police would stand by, calling ‘Erin go bragh’ as they drive down Route Six?”

“Oh, oh, yes, of course.”

“Give me your cell phone number and I’ll have Sonny call you.”

She wrote it in my little notebook and handed it back to me.

“And don’t pull a disappearing act on me, Dana. I would be seriously irritated if you did that.”

“Don’t worry.”

She walked back toward the gallery. I hoped to God her next stop wasn’t the Costa del Sol.